Life & Therapy

The first place I lived after college was Eugene, Oregon- a town with many unusual but endearing characters.  One day, my roommate came home and said, “I met this funny guy. He calls himself a botanical revolutionary, because he likes to plant dandelion seeds in sidewalk cracks and perfect lawns.”  As coincidence would have it, months later I moved into an apartment and discovered that this “botanical revolutionary” was my downstairs neighbor.  He was a big guy named Todd with dreadlocks, a huge smile, and a Jersey accent. If you met him, his dandelion-planting scheme would make complete sense- here was someone devoted to throwing a monkey-wrench into the world of seeming perfection and order.  Not someone you could possibly tame, and sometimes, someone who might drive you a little crazy, but all the same, pure at the core.

There are times when we could all use a little botanical revolutionary in our emotional world.  We might wish that things in life would be neat and orderly, like a perfectly weed-free putting green.  We may spend an inordinate amount of energy trying to make life cooperate with our need for perfection, order, and predictability.  Then something comes up that rumples up our smoothness.  It could be that we are taking a relationship for granted, and then our partner comes to tell us that something needs to change, now, because the relationship is in danger.  Perhaps we have a financial plan, and there is a setback- a car accident, a market crash, a job loss.  Maybe a health issue pops up and forces us to stop moving forward.  It could be that we are preparing for a race, and we pull a hamstring.  

Imagine that all of these moments are brought to us by a mischievous and comical dreadhead, tiptoeing around with his dandelion seeds, and giggling as he plants them in our putting green.  As dandelions pop up in the green, it may no longer be so uniformly perfect; at the same time, we can relax a bit and not feel so frightened about messing it up anymore.